The Perfect Crime: Sleeping In The Iowa City Library

A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So, we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never met anybody who traded with him. One day, I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away. So why steal them? Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to sleep in the Iowa City library.

ATTENTION COLLEGE STUDENTS: if you put your head down on the desk in the Iowa City library you WILL be treated as if you are homeless. ATTENTION HOMELESS: if you sleep in the Iowa City library you WILL be treated like a college student. ATTENTION IOWA CITY NEWS: if there’s nothing to talk about in Iowa City you CAN talk about things that are happening in other parts of the world.

Comments (65)

Oh boy, you guys! I went to college in Iowa City and the news there is hilarious. This was probably a pretty big story. Also, another fun fact about the University of Iowa library (separate from the Iowa City library) is that there was a legend that the 5th floor had a problem with a person who…let’s say wasn’t studying. My friend called him the 5th Floor Masturbator. What a name! Also that same friend once streaked through the library during finals! I love Iowa City you guys!!!

- Why’s he sleeping, Dad?
– Because we have to wake him.
– He didn’t do anything wrong.
– Because he’s the hero Iowa City deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we’ll wake him. Because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero. He’s a sleepy guardian, a snoozing protector. A dormant knight.

Alright, its about noon where I am, and there is no mention of the absolutely insane Manti Te’o story? Gabe, remember when you asked why people don’t comment as much anymore? Not to be rude, and this is a funny post, but stories about someone getting in trouble for sleeping in a library in Iowa and something about an ideal snowball fight, whatever that even means, is just not going to get the attention like A GUY STRAIGHT UP PULLING AN M NIGHT SHYAMALAN PLOT TWIST ON AMERICA will.

Also, while we are on the subject of lack of comments, WMOAT was by and away the most popular feature this site ever had, its the reason I started reading Videogum years ago, its the reason a lot of other older monsters are here, and it going away, along with virtually every recap, is definitely a big part of the reason for the decline in comments.

UGH. We let ‘em sleep until they start snoring. Ya can’t just lay out on the couch though, you guys. Also – ya can’t fall asleep at one of the public computer stations – because that’s a resource other people may want to use. We may come by and make sure you’re breathing, but i could care less if you’re dreaming.

Also – to that guy in the hat at the end of this story who was like, “I guess if it bugs you, you should just go wake them up.” – Hell no, fool! Leave that to us professionals who went to school for this business. Why do you think I got a Master’s degree in Library Science? It’s so I can disrupt your R.E.M. patterns. Seriously, public interacting with the public concerning behavior is never a good idea and usually leads to more behavioral issues. It’s like telling someone how to parent in the grocery store when you don’t have kids.

This is not a good story for libraries and I’m a little ticked off by it. We’re supposed to be a third place – away from work and away from home, where you can be comfortable. This is not welcoming.

Lastly, the preferred method of waking patrons up is to drop a heavy text at arms length onto a flat surface, or accidentally bumping their chair with the book cart.

personally. I loved napping in the library in college. My roommate was a nightmare and it was a quiet place. I also found the liminal wake-sleep zone of consciousness really intellectually and creatively fruitful, and reading dense and abstract texts (ladies) for more than 15 mins without a cat nap nigh impossible. I would argue that libraries should just embrace it and go whole-hog, and actually just bump up the seating. It would seem that the primary justification for considering sleeping people a bother is the belief that available seating is being unduly monopolized by sleepers (let’s put a pin in snoring for the moment*). This arises from a belief that pure readers are the only true and rightful denizens of the library. Even the blue-maned lass who self-identified as a reader-napper hybrid was forced to choose between her identities. I cry foul! filling a comfy, white-noise-coated livingroomesqe with books and then prohibiting napping is a perversion. Any advocate for fully outfitting libraries as places where both reading and napping are not only welcome, but emphasized and incorporated by design has my axe, tax dollars, and voice behind them.

At the library at my school the library is the most popular place on campus. Everyone is noisy (on one floor you’re especially allowed to be as noisy as you want), allowed to eat and sleep anywhere. People write on the walls and stuff and the director is getting rid of books to add more space for sofas. I feel like this is a nightmarish form of Community where I am Annie and just want to do well and get the heck out of here with my team of unlikely friends.

“Dressed in a way where someone might assume they are homeless.” Perfect wording, because as far as I am concerned, that already covers a lot of college students. The real question I have though is what, if like another massive chunk of college students, someone is dressed like they just got ready for bed. Are they allowed to sleep?

I was traveling with a friend once and we missed the last bus to New Hampshire out of Boston and had to spend midnight to 7a.m. at the bus station. We had tickets and bags with us. Every hour a security guard came by and woke us up, telling us we couldn’t sleep. We were sitting up in chairs.

I assume this was also a law being applied equally so it didn’t look like they were targeting homeless people, but come on! We had tickets and bags! Clearly we weren’t moving in to the bus station.

There was a section of my college library which unofficially pretty much for people sleeping. I took many a much needed nap there back in my day, and it was nice because I didn’t have to walk all the way back to my dorm or apartment between classes. I work in a public library now that is in a small town not near a college, so we don’t have too many nappers, except for a few little kids, but even that’s really rare. We do have it in our behavior policy that there’s no sleeping allowed, but it has really never been an issue. I do not like it when librarians and libraries are portrayed as being overly strict or not fun places. We have lots of fun things! And we will let you make noise too (as long as you’re not in the quiet area)!

I used to always fall asleep in an Economics class (no duh) right after lunch (OR COURSE) taught by a teacher with a mellow, monotone voice (I had no chance basically). He hated me for it and tried every method possible to keep me awake, i.e. slamming a book on my desk, etc.

So then he thought he would just try to humiliate me so he got a ROCKING CHAIR and put it in front of the class and I had to sit there. So I basically got to nap in a rocking chair while everyone else tried to pay attention in Economics.

This story doesn’t have much to do with the library other than it reminds me that people hate it when you don’t sleep in your bed.

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